Anti-Bullying Week: “I had to invest all my trust in myself…”

All this week, YakkityYaks will be joining with past and present Reality TV stars and fans just like you in honor of Anti-Bullying Week. We will be featuring stories from Reality TV personalities, members in our YakkityYaks forum, and fans from Twitter and Facebook. In an effort to join forces and increase awareness, we encourage you to share these stories with your friends and family and encourage continuous efforts to make a difference! We all are capable and we just hope that this motivates and encourages each and every one of us to take a stand and put a stop to bullying once and for all. YakkityYaks, don’t talk smack!

Read on below for two personal accounts from fans on Twitter who felt so moved to submit their own personal and touching stories, in addition to all of our other coverage today. Names have been changed to protect identities, but the stories are straight from the heart and unedited.

If you are interested in participating in our anti-bullying initiative by sharing your story, please contact JDMontgomery@yakkityyaks.com or ShellyBB13@me.com (Big Brother’s Shelly). Each and every story can bring about great change.

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A Victim of Bullying

Hi there. Saw the tweet about calling for stories, so here goes mine.

It’s been nearly ten years, but I still remember the day vividly. For years, I had been teased on a daily basis at school. It started off because of my eagerness to learn and my good grades. ‘Egghead,’ ‘nerd,’ ‘teacher’s pet.’ Then it became my weight. ‘Humpty Dumpty,’ ‘big gut.’ Then once I started junior high, kids started picking up on the fact that I might be gay. Heck, they figured it out before I did. But the things they’d say, whether it be sly sarcastic jokes or outright name calling, took a daily toll on me.

At its worst, I would be heckled and teased for hours on end, especially during agriculture class, something I didn’t have an interest in but which was mandated by the school. The other guys in the class would take our textbooks and find every picture in the book that featured any aspect of male animal genitalia and ask what I would do with them. These questions would follow me down the halls, into other classes. I would complain and beg for action from any teacher who would listen. I turned to the school counselor and asked for help.

The day in question, I was in agriculture class again. The lewd questions continued. The heckling got louder and louder until finally I slammed down my books and high-tailed it right out of the classroom. I went out to find the school counselor. Coincidentally, she was coming out to see me. “We want to have a little meeting,” she said, and she led me into the superintendent’s office. The counselor shut the door behind her, joining me in a small office with her, the super, and the high school principal. This is good, I thought. They’re going to tell me what they plan to do to stop this.

Not so.

Over the course of nearly two hours, I was subjected to interrogation from all three of them, asking me to try and pinpoint what it was about me that made the other guys make fun of me. They highlighted my ‘effeminate tendencies,’ my lack of interest in sports, and explicitly told me that I brought all the teasing upon myself. They asked me if I loved myself. The superintendent looked me straight in the eyes after I told her yes, and said “I don’t believe you.”

They then began to tell me they thought I might try to “Columbine” my school, highlighting the then recent one-year anniversary of that school shooting, and advised me that they recommended I seek professional help.

My trust in adults was broken at that moment, at least those in charge of that school. I had no defense, no backup. There was literally no one I could turn to who could do anything, or would do anything, to help me. I was faced with a choice: do I prove everyone right? Do I hurt other people or myself because that’s what these people expected of me, or do I continue on the way I was, relying on nothing but my own future?

I chose the latter. I had to force myself to wake up every morning with the objective of getting through it, promising myself that I would eventually get away from that place and never look back. I focused harder on my grades, graduated, moved on to college, and today I have a very nice, well-paying job and a very loving boyfriend of two years. (Our anniversary was Monday the 7th).

I had to invest all my trust in myself. I knew who I was and trusted that would carry me through in life. And it has.

-C. E.

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A Bully’s Personal Account

Hey,

I guess you kind of know me. I hate telling my story. Because in my story I was the bully. Now, I’m only 16 but I know what I did was wrong. And I regret it 100%.

I live in Philadelphia, a place where almost no one is like the next. I’m not a kid with money but I had it so much better than most. There was a girl named Marie who rode my bus, and she had a lot less. I used to tell her some awful things. Call her names. And once it even got physical. She moved after 6th grade and she was easily forgotten. This year, she moved back and I noticed her at my school. She was always avoiding me. Then one day I approached her at lunch, and I told her how sorry and wrong I was. There’s not a day I don’t think about how much hurt and pain I put her through. I hate myself for that. Now Marie and I have join the school club S.U.R.E for peace. I’m on the strong, growing team of Anti-bullying activists.

J.D. Montgomery accidentally stumbled into the world of entertainment when he first joined the Yak’s team all the way from medical school on the isle of St. Maarten. Entertainment media is probably the last place you’d expect a 3rd year medical student to wind up in, but YakkityYaks is where he’s at. J.D. used his fast-paced learning style to quickly further himself as one of the Yak’s top entertainment contributors. While he has no background in the entertainment industry, he is an avid fan of television, movies, and music and his passion for the exciting world of entertainment translates into his wide array of reports. When J.D. is not writing, you can find him busy studying for his medical boards and wandering the halls of the hospital … not Grey’s Anatomy or House, MD style (fortunately or not). He also has a BS in Neuroscience and is always looking for ways to channel his medical background for the Yak. Too bad he’s not a vet.

3 thoughts on “Anti-Bullying Week: “I had to invest all my trust in myself…””

November 14, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Susan

Thank you both for sharing. I would like to send a a way to grow up to become better today then you were yesterday to SD.

Great job YakkityYaks for giving people a place to share!!

November 15, 2011 at 7:08 am

Ashlyn Grossie

I want to make a difference in this fight aganist bullying. I am a 23 year old female who was bullied all the way in middle school and high school. I know what its like to want to take my own life but I had to fight thru it and overcome the obsticles and I am now a better person because of it. I would love to speak out and help children who are being bullied.. if anyone knows who to speak to or who to contact to help this issue please let me know at twitter @ashlyngrossie or on facebook! thank you!

November 15, 2011 at 1:20 pm

Laverne

Way to go! I am glad you both shared. This is a subject that needs to be front and certain especially among our youth today. Bullying can leave scars. I know. I have a few.